Most Americans whose family histories cover World War II are aware of the taciturn manner in which those of all cultures and nationalities who served or were imprisoned speak of what they experienced. It was as if an entire generation clammed up. Among those who did speak were a few who wrote the history that we have today of those times, just as journalists today are writing what will be the history that following generations will learn as history. It took years to get American veterans of that war to describe it, and only now are their exploits freely told. Similarly, people of Japanese...

For a century, the Bible of all good writers, and those aspiring to be, has been "The Elements of Style," first authored in 1918 by pedantic Prof. William Strunk, Jr., who later was joined by the highly entertaining writer, E.B. White, Strunk's former student famous for his articles in The New Yorker literary magazine. Strunk re-published the book in 1935 with Edward Tenney as co-author. Strunk died in 1946 and White took over the book, adding his entertaining style to it for the second edition in 1959. Another edition was published in 1972, but White died in 1985. The book, small enough to...